


First Blood

by byericacameron



Series: Canon AU [3]
Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Blood and Injury, M/M, Medical Trauma, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 07:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2459675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byericacameron/pseuds/byericacameron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how good a medic is at their job, it's a whole different experience when you're working to save your friend's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Blood

This mission had been FUBAR BUNDY from the beginning, but it wasn’t until Nick was flying backward through the air that he really thought it might be the end of him.

He slammed onto the dirt and broken concrete so hard he lost what little air was left in his lungs. His ears rang, his vision was mostly red and white spots, and he couldn’t quite remember where he was. All he knew was that getting up seemed really fucking important. Life or death important.

Too bad his body wasn’t responding to his brain’s frantic, disjointed commands. Not even a finger twitched.

His vision began to clear and he blinked up at the pale blue sky above him. He felt the ground vibrating underneath him sporadically and that drive to movemove _move_  was still itching in the back of his mind. It seemed slightly less important now, though.

Nick let his eyes close.

“Fuck no, you Irish bastard.” Something dug under his shoulders and then Nick was flying and someone whose voice was way too loud was yelling, “Doc! Doc where the fuck are you?” Ty. Wasn’t that Ty? He sounded upset. It was always either amusing or terrifying when Ty was upset. Right now Ty was edging into terrifying. “Nick, you keep breathing, you hear me? You die on me today and I will hunt your ass all the way to hell, fucker.”

“Put him down there.” Kelly’s voice was sharp. Kelly’s voice was  _never_ sharp. That was one of the beautiful things about Kelly. Nick was moving again. Too fast. It sent the room spinning and it made Kelly yell. “Be careful of his neck, moron!”

“Shut the fuck up and do your job, Corpsman.” Ty bent over Nick and he saw the dirt and bruises and blood smears on Ty’s face for the first time. Shit. That was a lot of blood. Was that Ty’s? Or Nick’s? “You better prove your fucking nickname right today, Lucky.” 

Ty touched the front of his helmet to Nick’s and then his was gone, darting out the door of the abandoned building he must have dragged Nick into.

He was starting to feel cold and a part of his brain was sending up alarms, little whispers that feeling cold in the middle of the day in the middle of the desert was a bad thing. And he saw Kelly ripping open his gear and pressing something onto his stomach, but he didn’t feel it. That probably wasn’t too great either. And when Kelly’s hands came away from Nick so he could pull something out of his kit… Wow that was a lot of blood.

“Fucking idiot,” Kelly mumbled as he ripped open a package of something with his teeth. “You walk  _away_  from the explosions, Irish. Not into them.”

He was trying to be funny, but Kelly still sounded too sharp. And his hands were shaking. And there were clean streaks running through the dirt caked on to his face.

“Hey, Doc, you doin’ all right?” Nick’s words sounded like wheezes with syllables, but Kelly seemed to understand. He grunted something that sounded like, “Peachy, asshole.”

“You seem stressed.”

“I seem  _stressed_?” Kelly muttered, his eyes narrowed as he focused on whatever was wrong with Nick’s middle. “Got to be fucking kidding me.”

“C’mon,” Nick begged his lungs to work and his vocal chords to cooperate, and to stop making it sound like he was dying. Even if he might be dying. He still couldn’t tell. “Not like you haven’t seen me bleed before, Kels.”

“Goddammit, Nick!” Kelly screamed, but his hands never left Nick. “This is not the same fucking thing!”

“Sure it is. It’s just blood, Kels.”

Kelly laughed, the sound somewhere between someone choking and a dying donkey. “I swear to god, Nick, if you don’t shut up I’m going to stitch you up in the shape of a daisy and make sure the fucker scars deep.”

Music filtered into his mind, something his mother used to play and he started humming. Kelly’s head cocked slightly as he listened and Nick saw him fighting the smile that spread slowly across his face. “’Everything’s Coming Up Roses’? Are you really singing classic Broadway show tunes while you’re doing your best to bleed out on me, Lucky?”

Nick coughed and winced at the pain that shot through his body. Oh shit. He really wished he could fall back into that overloaded place in his brain where he couldn’t feel the pain. Gritting his teeth, he made himself remember what Kelly had said. Best way to stay alive was to keep his medic calm. And he didn’t like it when Kelly wasn’t calm. “What’s it say about you that you recognized it from a few bars, Kels?”

“That our mothers probably had similar taste.” He moved out of Nick’s view for a second and when he came back he looked grim. Grim wasn’t a good look on Kelly. Nick didn’t like it. He had the stupidest urge to kiss it off his face. But that was probably the pain talking. Kelly wasn’t into guys. He’d hate Nick if Nick pulled a stupid stunt like that. Probably. God his stomach hurt! It felt like a whole chunk of his abdomen was missing.

“This is gonna hurt, Nicko.” Kelly’s chameleon eyes watched Nick carefully. Grinding his teeth together to keep himself from screaming—or biting his tongue off—Nick nodded. Kelly poured something over the wound.

Nick’s world exploded.

It felt like acid was eating him from the inside out. Something slapped over his mouth. He must have been screaming. He didn’t even know. Body throbbing and mind screaming for escape, Nick welcomed the darkness when it engulfed him completely.

Even in the black, he was almost sure he could hear Kelly crying and screaming at him to stay.

~*~

The smell was what woke him up. Foul and clean at the same time. It didn’t make sense. Antiseptic and infection?

Nick forced his eyes open, blinking into the light and waiting for his vision to clear. He remembered pain and blood and Kelly screaming at him. But that part must’ve been a nightmare because Kelly didn’t scream. It had only been a few months since the Devil Doc had joined the team, but he’d almost instantly become the calm, sunny center of their team. He’d been here, though. Just a second ago. What had happened to Kelly?

Trying to roll to his side, he gasped when spears of pain shot up and down his entire left side.

“Hey, no. No you don’t.” The pressure he hadn’t noticed in his right hand tightened and a hand pressed down on his shoulder, holding him down on the bed. And then Kelly was there staring down at him. “We finally got you stitched up all right and tight. Don’t you go fucking it up already, O’Flaherty.”

“You were gone.” Shit. His mental filter was always the first thing to go when he was in this much pain and this drugged up. Nothing short of biting off his tongue was going to stop words from coming out his mouth as soon as his brain thought them.

“I wasn’t gone. I’ve been right here.” Kelly smiled wearily as he fixed Nick’s thin blankets. “Haven’t left your side since Ty brought you to me, Lucky. Wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Good.” Nick swallowed and nodded slowly, that tiny bit of motion about all he could manage. “That’s good. And you’re not goin’ anywhere, right?”

"Nah. I’m not that easy to get rid of once I get my foot in the door.” Kelly rested his cheek on Nick’s chest, one of the few sections of Nick’s body that didn’t throb. “You’re stuck with me at this point, Nicko.”

“Okay.” The blackness started edging in again, but Nick fought it off just long enough to ask, “Promise?”

Kelly looked so solemn as he nodded slightly, never lifting his head from Nick’s chest. “Promise, babe.”

This time when Nick slipped back into unconsciousness, he could almost smile. Kelly would make sure he was okay. He would. Because it was Kelly and because he’d promised to stay. 


End file.
